Clark University

Farmers have acres of fields to look after, and it can be hard to spot an insect infestation before crops endure significant damage. What if a robot could help? That's a question computer science Professor Gary Holness and students are tackling in Clark's robotics lab, the Laboratory for Intelligent Perceptual Systems.

Eleven Clark undergraduate students spent this summer in Greece, researching the history of forced migration and settlement through the lens of food and culture. Their work was part of Clark's newly developed study abroad course, People-on-the-Move Research Studio: Food, Migration, and Belonging in Thessaloniki, funded in part by the Leir Program.

Working in the laboratory of Arshad Kudrolli, professor and chair of the Physics Department, the Ph.D. candidate conducts experiments detailing how California blackworms (Lumbriculus variegatus) move through water-filled spaces of various shapes and strictures. Student researcher Simon Bissitt '26 describes the worms he and Kapadia observe wriggling inside various containers as "inspiration models" for those future robots.

Meridian Stiller '26 worked at the nonprofit Sanctuary One Care Farm, which helps people struggling with health issues heal by participating in farm activities and provides a home to animals in need of rescuing or rehabilitation.

Abbie Hart '25 spent the summer working at the Worcester Art Museum.

Through a unique partnership with Worcester, 75 new trees have been planted in the Main South neighborhood to add natural beauty to the area and contribute to a healthier, and cooler, environment for residents.

For 76 Clarkies, summer was spent in the lab peering into microscopes, analyzing data, studying dung beetles, or mating fruit flies in the STEM Summer Undergraduate Research Program.

Will Smith '25, M.S. '26, is working on a summer research project in his hometown of Concord, New Hampshire, studying the effects of lupine flowers on the egg-laying behavior and overall performance of the frosted elfin butterfly, an endangered species.

Ashley Valois '25, Clark's Undergraduate Student Council president and a political science major, welcomed hundreds of new Clarkies to campus. "You aren't alone," Valois, of Waipahu, Hawaii, said. "At Clark, there is a village of people rooting for you, professors and friends you don't even know yet."

Noah Katz '26 needs no thesaurus when asked to describe what it was like to walk onto the field at Fenway Park and umpire a game in front of a sellout crowd of 37,000 raucous fans. He easily comes up with a host of adjectives, "incredible," "cool," and "surreal" among them.

Progress on the gender-neutral bathroom initiative, curricula that teach cross-cultural skills, and allyship and advocacy have earned members of the Clark community recognition.

Clark University awarded 1,376 degrees to the Class of 2024.

Natasha Rivas '24 deepened her skills even further during a semester abroad in Osaka, Japan, funded through a prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship.

Recipients of the 2024 President's Achievement Awards for Inclusive Excellence are Oliver McCormick '24, Amy Daly Gardner, MSPC '05, the Department of Language, Literature, and Culture, and Women's and Gender Studies. Abbie Goldberg, professor of psychology and the director of Women's and Gender Studies, received the Distinguished Inclusive Excellence Award, as did McCormick.

Dillon Remuck '25, a computer science and interactive media major, is a researcher at the University's Strategic Analytics and Institutional Research office (STAIR).

Clark University has announced the student speakers for the May 20 Commencement ceremony. Laila El-Samra '24, a biochemistry major and student leader who is planning a career in dentistry, will address her fellow undergraduates. Gabe Spindel '23, MBA '24, a second-generation Clarkie preparing to launch his career in Washington, D.C., will speak to members of the graduate school.

A group of Clark students have received a $10,000 Projects for Peace award to document the experiences of young people in Central Mexico as they deal with the impacts and uncertainty of climate change.

A group of undergraduate students presented their scholarship at the 18th Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference, held at Clark for the first time since its inception in 2002.

Emily Clarke '24 has worked on cataloging a collection of Nazi propaganda postcards donated to the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Emily Abney '24, an art history major, recently returned from a research trip to Venice, where she studied art central to her thesis.

Clark has chosen Harvest Table Culinary Group as the University's new hospitality partner.

One student from Vermont, one student from Maine, and one idea to create an app that teaches teens communication skills and gives parents a reprieve from worry. Meet ParentLock.

Sixteen Clark artists, representing 12 majors, have artworks featured in the 20th Annual ArtsWorcester College Show, an exhibition open to all undergraduate college students studying or residing in Massachusetts.

Clark teams begin New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference playoff run.

Twenty student artists are the first inducted into Clark's Kappa Pi art honor society.

Many of us hear about cyanobacteria when summertime blooms of toxic blue-green algae lead to beach closings at freshwater ponds and lakes. But cyanobacteria are not all bad - those growing in the ocean produce more than 12 percent of the oxygen we breathe, according to Clark Biology Professor Nathan Ahlgren.

"Let me tell you about my typical day." Sajed Ziade '26 suggests this as the best approach to understanding just what it takes to be a gamer at an elite level.

The Clark community gathered for a discussion with Curtis Chin, author of the memoir "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant."

Career development, workplace tours, and peeks into day-to-day job functions are all on the agenda during Career Trek trips, an opportunity for students to visit companies that employ Clark alumni.

In early September, I promised my friend Brien Rondeau '24, president of the Clark branch of the International Game Developers Association (IDGA), that I would participate in a game jam before the semester ended. Game jams are events in which a team tries to build a video game from scratch, usually within 48 hours, and the IDGA typically holds three jams per semester.